USA > Massachusetts > Norfolk County > Franklin > Town of Franklin annual report 1910 > Part 6
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2. SALUTE By Commander R. J. Chute
3. A LINCOLN EXERCISE Nason Street School Grade VI
4. ESSAY (original)-Last Days of Abraham Lincoln Jeremiah J. McCarthy High School
5. SONG-"Keller's American Hymn" Members of Ray School Grades VII and VIII
6. RECITATION-"O, Captain ! My Captain !" Josephine McCabe Nason Street School, Grade V
7. RECITATION-"Death of Lincoln" Gertrude Tupper Thayer School, Grade V
8. SONG-"My Old Kentucky Home" Members of Ray School Grade VI
9. RECITATION-"Visions of Lincoln" Reginald Miner Thayer School, Grade IV
10. RECITATION-"Little Blossom" Catharine Scanlon Town House School
11. GETTYSBURG ADDRESS
Arlington Street School Grades IV and V
12. THREE-PART-SONG-"Fatherland" Members of Mann School Grades VII and VIII
13. ADDRESS Hon. Melvin S. Nash
14. SALUTE TO THE FLAG
15. AMERICA
The enthusiasm manifested on this occasion, and at the Benjamin Franklin celebration in 1906, makes it ap- parent that we forego much good by the infrequency of
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such meetings. Our Memorial Day exercises would be much more impressive if held under one roof. and if the most were made of the opportunities afforded along the way.
Ninth Grade Graduation. On June 29. in the evening, occured the second annual graduation of the ninth grade. The exercises took place in the high school assembly hall, were largely attended. and were very suc- cessful. The program :
1. ESSAY-"Historical Boston" Marion McCarthy
2. PIANO SOLO Mary Martin
3. COMPOSITION-"A Discouraged Nurse-Maid," Nellie Whalen
1. ESSAY-"Our Navy" Horace Corbett
CORNET SOLO Annie Wise Florence Young
6. RECITATION-"The Stowaway"
7. SONG-"On to the Front" School
8. RECITATION-"The Culprit's Fay" Elizabeth Knapp
9. SONG-"Joys of Spring" Glee Club
10. ESSAY-"Elements of Success" Helen Everett
PRESENTATION CLASS PICTURE
11. PIANO SOLO Ruth Corbett
12. AT THE PHOTOGRAPHER'S CAST
Mrs. Wiggs
Melvina Wiggs Twins
Marvin Wiggs
Mr. Artman-Photographer
Clara Laura & Schoolgirls Veida )
Helen Louise Pullen Ruth Dunlop Corbett Alfred Edward Carlson William Herbert Ellis Grace Alice Burke Ethel Julia Tupper Gladys Phoebe Midgely Ethel Lillian Mosher
Miss Prim, an old maid
Miss Constance Lookwell
Farmer Pratt
John Pratt
Emma Pratt
Mrs. Pratt
Will Pratt
Grace Pratt
Lillian Blanche Boucher Arthur William Hill Charles William Munro Ida May Campbell Helen Mae Gormley James Raymond Smith Amy Elizabeth Peden
13. PRESENTATION OF DIPLOMAS
Dr. Solon Abbott, Chairman of School Committee.
Reopening of South Franklin School. After fif- teen years' non-use as a schoolhouse, the South Franklin
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building was again opened to pupils last September, over nine hundred dollars having been expended upon it in repairs, alterations, and improvements. The town was fortunate in the engagement as teacher of Miss Martha S. Bowdish, of Middlebury, Vt., who had had ample and successful experience in ungraded schools. A report from her is subjoined :
"There are seven grades in the school and twenty-nine classes daily. Enrolment is 36, and during no month has the attendance been below 92 per cent. The recitation periods are brief. This necessitates a perfectly prepared lesson to be recited quickly. The work is conducted somewhat after this manner: After devotional exercises, written arithmetic is begun, work assigned from the board, also reading classes begin to recite, primaries first. After recess come oral arithmetic, study of spelling, fifteen min- utes of writing, and one geography recitation. Written . spelling is the first thing in the afternoon together with study and recitation of grammar and language before re- cess. Geography and History recitations occur after recess.'
"The school building is well equipped concerning ne- cessaries, the heating apparatus works satisfactorily, but the grounds need grading because of standing water and for the appearance of the place. Because of the isolation of the school there should be reference books and a young people's encyclopedia."
Raising of Age of Admission. The age of admis- sion was advanced in September from 5 to 5 1-2 years. The wisdom of the change has been manifest ever since. The primary teachers have all spoken of it. This testi- mony is corroborated by a work* of first importance which has appeared during the year, and which states, as one of its many significant findings, that "children who make the most rapid progress through the grades are those who start late and those who make the slowest progress are those who start early" (page 169). Ought not our limit now to be made 6 years instead of 5 1-2 ?
* Ayres : Laggards in Our Schools.
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New Ninth Grade. A second ninth grade was op- ened in September, much to the relief of the older one, which numbered sixty pupils in that month of the year previous, and bid fair to be as large as last term.
Longer School=Day. In grades VII and VIII the school-day has been made half an hour longer with the result that some of the pupils are now able to prepare all of their lessons in school, while no one has as much work to take home as formerly.
Primary Hours of Attendance Changed. The holding of separate sessions at the Brick, Four Corners and Nason Street primaries was abandoned early in the fall for the former plan of simultaneous attendance for both grades (I and II). But the first grade is excused at the middle of each session, morning and afternoon.
Text=Book Additions. Twenty-two hundred or more text-books-(about one-fifth of them for the high school) -have been bought during the year, greatly strengthen- ing the subjects to which they have been applied. Geog- raphy has benefited by the addition of Frye's Grammar School Geography in grades VII and VIII; Arithmetic by the introduction of the revised edition of Warren Colburn's famous Intellectual Arithmetic in grades VII and VIII; Language by the adoption of the Scott-South- worth Lessons in English in grade V, and of Maxwell's Introductory Lessons in English Grammar in grade VI; Reading in grades IV, V and IX, by the addition of enough matter to make, with what was on hand, a full year's supply in those grades; Penmanship by the dis- tribution of twenty-five copies of Public School Penman- ship, "a handbook for teachers." Here we may digress to say that visits from the author of this work have been of great benefit to teachers and pupils, and that the so- called "arm movement" has been tried with good success in grades II and III.
Percentage of Attendance. Percentage of attend- ance in the nine grades was remarkably good during the fall term, being 96 in September, 95 in October, 94 in
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November and 93 in December. In January it was 89, the decline being largely due to the severity of the weather.
Shortening of the Elementary Course. A plan has been in operation since September whereby a limited number of pupils will enter the high school from the eighth grade next fall. It contemplates the complete elimination of the ninth grade in due time.
The question arises, if the ninth grade is to be per- manently abolished, what is to become of the work which that grade has been doing? For much of it is of too val- uable a character to be lost. That the pupil can enter the high school a year sooner is no sufficient compensa- tion, for in the first place he may never go there, and in the second, as between the last year of the grammar school course, and the first year of the high school, the former is much to be preferred for the majority of boys and girls, as studies now are. From this two conclus- ions seem to follow : One, that the work of the first high school year should be made of just as USEFUL a sort as that of the year which it is intended to eliminate ; and the other, that the distinguishing parts of the present ninth grade course should be embodied in the work of the previous year. By wise condensations, simplifications, and omissions this can probably be done. In fact the course in Language and Grammar has already been revised from the fourth grade on with this end in view.
After all, after a certain point in the elementary course has been reached, the question of a pupil's fitness for the high school is not so much a matter of outward attainment as of inward capacity. So far as mere book- learning goes there is no real reason why a pupil who has completed seven years, or even six years of elementary work could not enter the high school then. But though this is possible from the point of view of mere knowledge, it by no means follows that the pupil is of the required mental maturity for secondary studies. This is an im- portant distinction to bear in mind when we use the phrase, "Ready for the high school."
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Primary Time Allotment. For many years, if not always, the teachers of grades I and II have been allowed to divide the week's time among the various subjects as they have severally thought best. But this liberty has resulted in too great variations. For example, one teach- er would give one hundred fifty minutes a week to a cer- tain subject where another would give only seventy-five. On the other hand, primary work is of such a character that it ought not to be bound down to an inflexible time- plan. To satisfy both extremes an elastic scheme was ador ted whereby each primary teacher gives not less than a certain minimum number of minutes, and not more than a certain maximum number of minutes, to each branch. The schedule is :
Subjects
Grade
Minimum Allowance
Maximum Allowance
Arithmetic
. I
100 minutes
125 minutes
II
200
66
250
Drawing
I
6.
0
66
6.
II
60
60
Handwriting
I
75
66
100
66
II
100
125
66
Language
I
100
66
I25
66
Music
I
60
66
75
66
66
II
60
66
75
66
Opening Ex.
I
20
30
6.
II
20
66
30
6.
Phonetics
I
50
66
75
66
II
75
10
66
Reading
I
225
66
250
66
II
250
300
II
100
66
125
Teachers' Grade=Meetings. Evident good has re- sulted from the holding of grade-meetings, in which all the teachers of a given grade meet to discuss, under the
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leadership of one of their own number, the affairs of pe- culiar concern to their schools.
Changes in Teachers. The teachers named in the directory printed in the last report all remained in their respective positions until the end of the year in June. At that time Miss Bertha F. Hayes, Miss Gay, Miss Reed, and Miss Stone concluded their services. Miss Newhouse was granted leave of absence for the fall term, at the end of which time her resignation took effect. The only place where there has been a change of teachers since the school-year began in the fall is the primary room on Nason street. Miss Stock continued in that po- sition until the end of Friday, Oct. 22. Amy S. Kelly, of Danvers, Mass .. then held it until Miss Saville took it on Thursday, November 11. Miss Minnie C. Matthews, of Provincetown, Mass., took charge of the second grade room on Arlington street when that room was reopened on September 20.
100 Questions in Arithmetic. As the rules require, the superintendent has given examinations during the year. The most recent of these-tests in music-are re- ferred to elsewhere in this report. Late in 1908-09 serial examinations in arithmetic, each consisting of one hundred simple questions never before used, were given in grades IV, V, VI, VII, and VIII. They were really sets of short daily tests, running through a period of about two weeks. The names of pupils were not dis- closed on their papers, no teacher was allowed to mark the work of her own school, and results were ranked on accuracy alone, no value being given if the process was right but the answer wrong. On this basis most of the 441 pupils examined failed to get a pass-mark. But they knew better than they did. Not ignorance but carelessness
was their besetting weakness. As this tendency has pre- vailed in the other examinations of the year, and is per- haps characteristic of untutored childhood, we have since redoubled our efforts against it. In numerous instances it has yielded when the pupils have been made to under- stand that blunders are serious, and that their work will be marked on results and results alone.
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Perhaps some allowance ought to be made, whenever an examination is given, for the fact that it is an examin- ation. Many hold that pupils do better in the ordinary oral recitation. At the same time, can we afford to belit- tle the importance of written work ? Men and women are so often called upon in life to put things "in black and white," and are so often judged accordingly, that it would seem to be our duty to make the writing of acceptable tests one of the requisites of proficiency.
THREE DUTIES OF 1910.
Without meaning to detract from the importance of other matters, I wish to mention three duties in particu- lar of the year 1910.
1. A Better Time=Allotment. The two agents of the state board of education, who have been here and ex- amined our present time allotment, both pronounce it wrong in important particulars. And this judgment is confirmed by experience.
ARITHMETIC. For example, there were as many fail- ures in arithmetic last year as in all the other "major" studies combined. Yet arthmetic is receiving more than 25 per cent. of the working time in grades III, IV, V, VI, VII, and VIII, which is an unparalleled time-allow- ance so far as known. Boston in her new course of study appropriates less than 17 per cent. Is there not a law of "diminishing returns" in study as well as in agriculture which begins to operate when cultivation has been carried beyond a certain point ?
COMPOSITIONS. Pupils' compositions now at the of- fice demonstrate in unmistakable terms the need of pay- ing more attention to the art of written language. A sub- ject of such great immediate and future importance to our pupils merits a definite place on the program-like arith- metic, grammar, geography, and the rest-and not, as now, merely incidental treatment. To refer to the new Boston course of study again, over 20 per cent. of the working time is there reserved for "Spoken and Written English."
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MUSIC. Tests in music recently given indicate that the boys in the eighth and ninth grades have almost no knowledge of the F clef. As bass and tenor are the parts which, if any, they will sing when men grown, it is a se- rious wrong to let them go through the grammar schools untaught how to read music as usually written for male voices. Elsewhere in the grades there is much ignorance of the facts of ordinary music. Unless the present aver- age allowance of only eight minutes a day is soon length- ened, we shall be facing a general inability to read music on the part of our older pupils. The fact that we have had no singing teacher for the past two years or more probably has something to do with the present state of the subject, but is this not one further reason why it should be assisted by a more liberal time-allowance ?
DEPORTMENT. Recent instances of misbehavior among our boys again suggest that a certain portion of each week or month be set apart for the purposes of man- ners and morals. The incidental instruction along this line which is already given is not to be undervalued, but as Superintendent Maxwell of New York says, "More sys- tematic and detailed instruction is needed to the end that all the children may not leave the public schools without clearly defined notions of duty, of virtue, of truth and fal- sity, of right and wrong, of honesty and dishonesty, of the binding force of contracts, and of respect for law." Were this idea carried out in our own schools breaches of good conduct would surely be less, and the foundations of better manhood and womanhood would be more deeply and firmly laid. I have myself given a few talks to the boys during the year on matters of behavior, but until provision has been made as above suggested, what ex- mayor Fosdick said at Milford the other evening will be more or less true of our own schools: "Moral education has been relegated by the home to the school, and by the school to the home, and in consequence there is no moral education."
2. A More Practical Education. The vocational trend of modern educational thought is now too well and
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too favorably known to require extended explanation or defense in this community. If legislation is any indica- tion of the state of the public mind on the subject, it is worth while to note that the Commission on Industrial Education has lately been consolidated with the State Board of Education, that a commissioner has been chosen whose sympathies are pronouncedly with the new move- ment, and that our statutes already go so far as to allow any town which maintains an approved industrial school to collect from the commonwealth a certain amount of reimbursement for money thus expended. They also, under certain circumstances, make a town liable for the tuition of any of its residents in an industrial school of another town or of a city. But the question which chiefly concerns us is : What are we doing about the matter in Franklin ?
INDUSTRIAL TRAINING. Let it first be said that the industrial training movement does not materially involve the elementary schools. What it calls for in them is, not so much the introduction of new subjects, as that the subjects already there shall take on more of an industrial character. Arithmetic must draw its examples more largely from the farm. the shop and the mill. Geography must become to a greater extent the geography of com- merce and industry. Drawing in particular must be taught with reference to the "mechanical and manufac- turing interests," as was the intention when it was made compulsory forty years ago, and it must receive the time allowance of an essential study. Our average of eight minutes daily will be found most inadequate for the pur- poses of the coming education. In short, it is the crea- tion of an industrial tone or atmosphere rather than actual work with tools and machinery that the new move- ment expects of the grammar schools.
Where then are its effects to be most distinctly felt ? Unquestionably in the high school. With the foundation of a common school education to build upon, a boy may fitly begin to work in a specialized direction. Besides. it may very seriously be doubted whether, under the pres- ent system of studies, the high school yields returns in
27
proportion to what it costs - in our town. about $5000 a year, or about $50 per pupil.
Different plans which are on trial in other places might be suggested for adoption here in Franklin, but as a preliminary to the offering of recommendations, I would propose that the committee hold conferences, not only with experts from away, but with the local manufactur- ers, the principal of Dean academy, and any other towns- people whose opinion and advice would be of material as- sistance before taking a departure so radical. " Men are never so likely to solve a question rightly as when they discuss it freely," observed John Stuart Mill, and his saying may well be heeded when we are at a turning point in our educational procedure. Meanwhile let us make the most of the manual training shop which we already have, and so arrange that every boy in the high school has an equal chance with every other boy to enjoy its advantages during school hours.
HOUSEHOLD SCIENCE. Not less important is the pro- vision of some form of domestic training for the girls. Very little of what they now learn in the high school tends to fit them for the future responsibilities of the home.
But training for an occupation is not all that there is to a practical education. How to keep well is practi- cal. Command of good English is practical. Good hand- writing is practical.
PENMANSHIP. In this last respect two very sensible steps might be taken in our schools. First, to abolish the general use of copy-books, and secondly, to give the teach- ers a course of lessons in penmanship. Strange to say, the normal schools are only just beginning to provide training in this most important art, but there is perhaps no other subject on whose theory and practice teachers have so weak a grasp. With regard to copy-books the opinion seems to be fast gaining ground that the attempted repro- duction of engraved headlines is not true writing,nor con- ducive to it. New York, Chicago. and St. Louis have discarded copy-books altogether, and Boston has done so
28
in about 80 per cent. of her schools. Scores of other places have set them aside wholly or partially. There is now at least one "method" available which not only emancipates pupils from the copy-book, but gives free and systematic training to teachers until they become profic- ient in the principles and the practice of good writing. I would recommend for consideration the Palmer Method of Business Writing.
EVERY-DAY LAW. Again, acquaintance with the rules of every-day law is practical. We spend much time in the study of government, but almost none in the study of the laws that obtain between man and man. Some knowledge of the first principles of property, contracts, buying and selling, and the like would be as truly prac- tical as much else that is now thus described.
3. Reduction in the Number of Non=Promotions. There is one respect in which it is not possible to write favorably of the year's results, and that is the large num- ber of pupils who failed of promotion last June. This is a serious matter, and should be considered at some length. In June, 1904, 18.49 per cent. failed to pass; in June, 1906, 14.35 per cent. (data for 1905 are incomplete); in June, 1907, 14.93 per cent .; in June, 1908, 12.16 per cent. ; and last June, 19.03 per cent. To illustrate by diagram :
Year
Percentage not Promoted. Grades I to VIII.
Increase or Decrease
1903-4
(18.49 per cent.)
1904-5
Insufficient data
1905-6
(14.35 per cent. )| 4.14 per cl. decrease
1906-7
(14.93 per cent )
.58 per ct. increase
1907-8
(12.16 per cent.) 2.77 per ct. decrease
1908-9
(19.03 per cent.) 6.87 per ct. increase
Thus it appears that relatively more pupils were held back last June than for any other one of the five years re- ported. Now something is fundamentally wrong where
29
so striking an increase of non-promotions has so suddenly developed. Many educators regard the proportion of pu- pils promoted as the real test of a school's efficiency. Be that as it may, unnecessary retardation for this cause is quite undesirable. It is expensive. It forces many out of school who would otherwise stay and precludes those who will leave anyway as soon as the law permits from being one grade further along at that time.
Now what can be done to remedy a situation in which nineteen out of every hundred of our pupils are denied promotion ? A few suggestions deserve consideration.
1. MORE INDIVIDUAL TEACHING. It is a significant coincidence that the three years when failures were fewest as above shown are just the three when individual teaching was in vogue in the schools of Franklin, and that the year of the lowest percentage of failures (1907-8) is the very year when this form of instruction was at its height. But today conditions are even more inviting than they were then. There are not so many pupils in the element- ary schools, and there are no less than nine rooms above grade II, where the membership is not more than thirty- five scholars.
2. MORE ATTENTION TO HOW LESSONS ARE PREPARED A book has appeared during the year which merits the reading of school boards, teachers, and parents. It is Dr. F. M. McMurry's "How to Study and Teaching How to Study." It accounts for the ineffectiveness of much of our so-called "study" by alleging that teachers have had almost no opportunity of learning either the theory or the method of right habits of study. If this is so, the com- mittee would do well to place at the disposal of the teach- ers any literature which will help them to a better under- standing of this problem.
But more than this is necessary. We must surround the study period with every possible favoring circumstance: a minimum of noise and distraction, and freedom for the teacher to observe, inspect, assist, and compel concentration of thought. When we have done so, we shall surely see less waste of energy, greater interest in work, happier
30
spirits, quieter nerves, and (to come back to the principal topic) a higher rate of promotions.
3. A MORE REASONABLE COURSE OF STUDY. We need to remember that most of our text-books are prepared by specialists-persons whose enthusiasm for their subjects of- ten carries them beyond the proper bounds of the element- ary curriculum. But a change for the better seems to be setting in. As an author of one of our mathematical books remarked last November, "Yes, we are going to simplify our books. The tendency of the times is all away from so much arithmetic." Similar quotations could be made from the writers of the newer grammars, and the newer geographies. What is more significant, there seems to be a growing desire on the part of school officials for more rational text-books. The committee of fifteen, ap- pointed to recommend arithmetics for the use of the Bos- ton public schools, has lately reported in favor of three series which are said to be "simple and sensible ;" "neith- er exhaustive nor extremely theoretical ;" avoiding the use of problems "unlikely to occur in ordinary business experience." From Philadelphia came the news last Nov- ember that a "committee of principals appointed to sim- plify the course in arithmetic has completed its report. The new course will be based on the simple rules of arith- metic which will be of most service to the child later." When we imitate the example of other places and strip this course of its impractical, superfluous, and over-intri- cate parts, and devote the time to the usual and funda- mental aspects, we shall have fewer failures in arithmetic.
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